Deutschland Tour: Jonathan Milan scorches stage 3 bunch sprint for third win in four days

VILLINGENSCHWENNINGEN GERMANY AUGUST 24 Jonathan Milan of Italy and Team Lidl Trek Green Points Jersey celebrates at finish line as stage winner during the 39th Deutschland Tour 2024 Stage 3 a 2111km stage from Schwbisch Gmnd to VillingenSchwenningen UCIWT on August 24 2024 in VillingenSchwenningen Germany Photo by Christian KasparBartkeGetty Images
Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) takes the sprint victory on stage 3, his third win in four days (Image credit: Christian Kaspar Bartke/Getty Images)

Lidl-Trek scored a fourth consecutive stage win on Saturday with Jonathan Milan earning the sprint victory in Schwenningen on stage 3 at the Deutschland Tour.

Race leader Mads Pedersen ushered his teammate Milan to the front of the bunch at the 1km banner and the Italian accelerated through the final righ-hand bend for an uncontested third victory in four days. 

"It was a super hard day. We started with this climb after around 35km and from there until now I was really on the limit always," Milan said. "The parcours was always up and down and we had a few attacks on the climbs after that first one. The guys in front, in the breakaway, were riding strongly, and chasing them in the last kilometers was pretty hard.

"The plan was to come to a sprint today but, of course, if one of us was feeling better than the other than we would adapt the situation but everything went perfectly. It means a lot to have Mads lead me out like that. He did one kilometer of lead out so it's even not enough to say he did a perfect job."

The longest stage of the five-day race at 212km, Saturday’s adventure was the queen stage with close to 3,000 metres of elevation gain over a series of small climbs, four of them categorised. 

Five riders got away across the climbing in the first half of the race and gained as much as six minutes. Jørgen Nordhagen Visma-Lease a Bike), Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarché-Wanty), Marius Mayrhofer (Tudo Pro Cycling), and Mattéo Vercher (TotalEnergies) and Dawit Yemane (Team Bike Aid) saw their 4:40 advantage begin to dwindle. 

Nordhagen secured more KOM points at the fourth climb at Albstadt, with 77km to go, while mountain classification leader Yemane called it a day on the front. Nordhagen would finish as the new mountains leader. 

As a trio of intermediate sprints approached for the final 51km of the race, It was nearing the first sprint line in Schörzingen with 62km to go that Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious) attacked from the peloton to take up the chase of the four riders ahead, who had a margin of 1:45. He tagged on with 36.5km to go, the peloton 1:32 back.

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Jackie Tyson
North American Production editor

Jackie has been involved in professional sports for more than 30 years in news reporting, sports marketing and public relations. She founded Peloton Sports in 1998, a sports marketing and public relations agency, which managed projects for Tour de Georgia, Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah and USA Cycling. She also founded Bike Alpharetta Inc, a Georgia non-profit to promote safe cycling. She is proud to have worked in professional baseball for six years - from selling advertising to pulling the tarp for several minor league teams. She has climbed l'Alpe d'Huez three times (not fast). Her favorite road and gravel rides are around horse farms in north Georgia (USA) and around lavender fields in Provence (France), and some mtb rides in Park City, Utah (USA).

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